Tarot Business

All tarot readers secretly live by the title of this Aerosmith song. It hurts both our pride and self confidence when we aren’t spot on with our readings, but the fact is that it happens to all of us. No matter how good we are.

The question is then how to handle it. The first step is to accept that we cannot always be right. We need to be open for that we might have missed a clue, misinterpreted a card and so on. There is a big but here though, and that is that even if that is the case, it is still us as tarot readers who need to be in control of the situation. It is our reading, our mistakes, and it is not up to our clients to tell us how we should have or could have interpreted our own reading. So don’t invite them to do that.

The second step is to realize that it isn’t as easy as it sounds to admit a mistake. Pride is often in the way both for the tarot reader and the client. It is not uncommon to come up with ideas that the client will not relate to immediately. Perhaps they don’t sit on all the information for it to make sense yet as events may be revealed to them in time. It can be particularly tricky if the client is just after getting a confirmation of how they think or wish something should be. So before you admit to doing a mistake it would be wise to at least map out the situation and find out whether the client is that type of client or not.

If the answer is no and the client seem pretty open-minded about the reading, but it still seems completely off to them, it is time to open up for the possibility that you as a reader might not have the best day. And you need to allow yourself to not have the best day every single day. It’s not a defeat. The best advice would probably be to politely ask them to reschedule for another reading at a later point. Don’t try to do a new reading then and there. That would be extremely awkward for you when you miss a second time. If the client doesn’t accept it, offer them a refund, if you take payments for your readings. If you are being polite and humble about it many will show empathy and try to understand you. If you slander someone for being honest, polite and humble about a mistake I would argue that the problem does not lie with you. So if you can manage to be humble and polite then you are less likely to take a reputation hit as well.

In classical magic there are strict protocols for when and how various beings can be contacted. Usually there is always a specific time window when contact needs to be established based on astrology, where you are in the lunar cycle, time of the day and so on. If you are into esoteric tarot, you might want to have a tarot journal where you log these events as it potentially also could influence your tarot readings. After a while maybe you will find a pattern for when you have on or off days. Unlike the books of old, it will not tell you when the best time for a tarot reading is. So here you are left to do your own research for the best timings.

The third and final step is to not dwell on what happened. You need to move on. Perhaps it is best to take a break for that day, but don’t let it discourage you from taking on new clients. Your confidence will come back with the next good tarot reading.

-Thus spake the Night Spirit

Another mountain to overcome.

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Maybe you have come to a point in your tarot reading when you feel like it is the time to start reading for someone else. And by that I mean reading for somone outside of your comfort zone. Not your regular family and friends, but perhaps you have received an opportunity to read for friends of friends or maybe you even have considered to move on to get paid from clients.

Before you venture into that territory there are a few things that would be wise to consider. First of all you should have some ethical guidelines in place for what you think is ok and not to do as a reader. This post will not be about that. Perhaps I will write about it later at some point , but for the most part it is a lot of common sense such as do not read on people’s health etc. What you need to consider carefully though is what kind of reader you want to be and what it means to be that type of reader.

For example, let’s say you have been invited to a party and have been asked to do readings there. Some people are really excited about that, it could be a great opportunity to meet people and show them your tarot reading skills, right? Well, no, not necessarily. If you want to be the entertaining kind of reader that just read superficially then maybe it could suit you, but I have also heard and read about tarot readers going into the situation with very high expectations and end up extremely disappointed when they experience that the people at the party didn’t take the reading seriously at all.

Another possible scenario is that often tarot tends to get really personal really quickly, because people often ask about things that are rather personal to themselves or they don’t properly understand how personal the topic they have chosen could turn into. Potentially, you could have someone asking about their chances for love and in the cards you see that the opportunity just doesn’t seem to be right at the moment. Perhaps the person has the wrong mind set to attract a partner or whatever, but the point is, when you are at a party, they are in a completely different mind set. They are there to have fun and not get a life coaching lesson. Perhaps they secretly had hoped that they would find that special someone at the party. As a result they get sad, the party is ruined for them and even worse – you are to blame for it.

It is a very real situation that you could end up in, if you haven’t thought about these things beforehand and have a clear strategy of what you want to accomplish with your reading. Perhaps party reading isn’t for you. Maybe reading for people live isn’t for you at all. It is completely okay to read for people exclusively online as well. My most successful readings have been online, where I have the time to properly think of how the cards are lined up and interact with eachother. I find that reading face to face is a lot harder. And then there are people who are completely the opposite. They feel that they need to see the person and communicate throughout the whole session.

I just want my readers to think through properly what you want to accomplish and ask yourself one extra time if the setting around the reading is right for you. To do a mistake here can be costly and seriously damage the confidence in yourself as a tarot reader. It doesn’t matter if you weren’t taken seriously or if you crashed the party. Ultimately it is your responsibility that perhaps you were a little bit too eager and jumped into it before you had the fundamentals in place.

It might seem like another mountain to overcome to become a great reader, but it is definitely worth it to take a few moments to consider the setting that is appropriate for you so that you can feel comfortable and have control over your own tarot sessions. It is better to have done that and try to avoid that situation that could lead to a serious confidence hit and maybe even make you lose your interest in reading for others.